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I would blame the gw from the ferts. He might have different plants with different speeds of growth that don't absorb nutrients as fast as Pantanal or plant mass of. We see all these different tanks where different strategies work and then claimed to be proof as if the plants used doesn't matter.....

i been working on this fertilizer for while now and it seems to work very well, ingredients are very similar to most fertilizers, but this fertilizers use combination of many different sources of chemicals to make it even work better. for example: you are not adding nitrate through KNO3 only, but in this ferts you are adding it through urea, Ca nitrate, Mg nitrate etc. stems plants responded to this very well and you will notice the difference when you dose this fert. according the plant response and those who tested it, this fert had faster growth than the EI dosing.

Dosing: 20ml everyday for 50g high tech tank, reduce the dosage if you have low tech tank. at the water changes you should add 20ppm of K+ through K2SO4, you can also use GH booster to achieve the same, i highly recommend using GH booster. you notice that i did not say anything about the Phosphate dosing, that is because i did not want to mix it with this solution, you can make separate solution or dose EI style dry, you should dose 1ppm of PO4 3x week. The best time to dose this ferts is when the lights are already on for the first hour or so. people with higher Ph 7> should be careful when dosing this ferts, as you can see that it contain urea which could cause problem for those with higher PH.

Water Changes: I changed 50% water every 2 weeks while dosing this ferts with no problem, but you can still do you 50% water change weekly if you like that routine. i also use 100% RO water in my tank, i do not use any KH buffering.
my water parameter:
100% RO Water
KH 0
Gh 2-3
PH 6<
water temp 78F

MOST IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure your co2 levels are good, if you forget to dose Phosphate and K+ then you might see no difference in plant growth and it will be complete fail. if you decide to use K2SO4 instead of Gh booster, i recommend that you add Ca (about 20-30ppm) and Mg (6-8ppm) through Mg/Ca sulfates.

storing the solution: i recommend that you keep it cool and keep it in the dark (fridge is highly recommended).

Reason for K2so4 to react when used in the solution:

the reaction we were seeing in the solution was caused by K2so4 and CaNo3, when you mix these together they form KNO3 and leave behind all the sulphate from K2SO4 siting on the bottom of the solution. so you get no Ca at all in the solution, you do get more K+ without adding more KNO3, all the SO4 is removed which you don't want too much of it anyway.

as you can see in the video plants were growing at 3ppm of Ca from 1tsp GH booster once a week or during water changes, after all we don't need that much Ca.

02-24-2016 12:42 PM

xandro007

So what is the ultimate solution .and the PO4 also in the solution and how many ppm K2SO4 I need . I am indeed a beginner and really want to use this formula but I find it rather difficult to understand

i wont recommend using this fert if you have no experience or are beginner, there is water parameter involve, which require acidic low PH water in order for this fert to work, otherwise you kill your fish.

GH/KH, the KH can be 0 and no need to mess with it, its better to have it 0, GH can be 50-60ppm, Calcium can be low as 3-5ppm, Magnesium can be 5-10ppm.

07-01-2013 11:50 AM

newbieplanter

I'm still lookin for the vid? Anyway when useing the GH/bakin soda booster either or am I aimin for 120-180ppm? I figured I'd ask cuz u seem knalegable about the whole ferts thing?

i been working on this fertilizer for while now and it seems to work very well, ingredients are very similar to most fertilizers, but this fertilizers use combination of many different sources of chemicals to make it even work better. for example: you are not adding nitrate through KNO3 only, but in this ferts you are adding it through urea, Ca nitrate, Mg nitrate etc. stems plants responded to this very well and you will notice the difference when you dose this fert. according the plant response and those who tested it, this fert had faster growth than the EI dosing.

Dosing: 20ml everyday for 50g high tech tank, reduce the dosage if you have low tech tank. at the water changes you should add 20ppm of K+ through K2SO4, you can also use GH booster to achieve the same, i highly recommend using GH booster. you notice that i did not say anything about the Phosphate dosing, that is because i did not want to mix it with this solution, you can make separate solution or dose EI style dry, you should dose 1ppm of PO4 3x week. The best time to dose this ferts is when the lights are already on for the first hour or so. people with higher Ph 7> should be careful when dosing this ferts, as you can see that it contain urea which could cause problem for those with higher PH.

Water Changes: I changed 50% water every 2 weeks while dosing this ferts with no problem, but you can still do you 50% water change weekly if you like that routine. i also use 100% RO water in my tank, i do not use any KH buffering.
my water parameter:
100% RO Water
KH 0
Gh 2-3
PH 6<
water temp 78F

MOST IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure your co2 levels are good, if you forget to dose Phosphate and K+ then you might see no difference in plant growth and it will be complete fail. if you decide to use K2SO4 instead of Gh booster, i recommend that you add Ca (about 20-30ppm) and Mg (6-8ppm) through Mg/Ca sulfates.

storing the solution: i recommend that you keep it cool and keep it in the dark (fridge is highly recommended).

Reason for K2so4 to react when used in the solution:

the reaction we were seeing in the solution was caused by K2so4 and CaNo3, when you mix these together they form KNO3 and leave behind all the sulphate from K2SO4 siting on the bottom of the solution. so you get no Ca at all in the solution, you do get more K+ without adding more KNO3, all the SO4 is removed which you don't want too much of it anyway.

as you can see in the video plants were growing at 3ppm of Ca from 1tsp GH booster once a week or during water changes, after all we don't need that much Ca.

06-11-2013 02:41 AM

happi

no one noticed about the reaction i have mentioned, i guess even guru's weren't aware of it, they did say all these chemicals should mix well.

I thoughtt ammonicial is the easist for plants and the first one to be absorbed. Nitrates when ammonium is not present.

Dave, Jeff have given a good answer. let me also add something to it too, plants do prefer ammonium over Nitrate because its easily taken up by them, so you are also correct. but in my study i have found that most plant react to ammonium and some did not react very well. i did not have all the plant to test, but this test showed the results on these two sp. the plant that reacted well to ammonium was ludwigia Pantanal and plant that did not react very well to ammonium was Sp. Belem, Sp. Belem reacted better to nitrate.

I thoughtt ammonicial is the easist for plants and the first one to be absorbed. Nitrates when ammonium is not present.

Here's a quote from Seachem's site.

"Nitrogen comes in a variety of forms (nitrate, ammoniacal, urea). While plants can use all three forms the form that is preferred varies by species. Thus nitrogen supplements derived solely from just one form (nitrates) will not be as effective as a supplement that provides all three forms."

Plants absorb their nitrogen first from nitrates, secondly from ammonicial nitrogen sources, and finally from urea. I know that urea is inexpensive but why use a source of nitrogen that plants cannot uptake efficiently?

I thoughtt ammonicial is the easist for plants and the first one to be absorbed. Nitrates when ammonium is not present.

05-10-2013 12:15 PM

happi

UPdate:

the reaction we were seeing in the solution was caused by K2so4 and CaNo3, when you mix these together they form KNO3 and leave behind all the sulphate from K2SO4 siting on the bottom of the solution. so you get no Ca at all in the solution, you do get more K+ without adding more KNO3, all the SO4 is removed which you don't want too much of it anyway.

as you can see in the video plants were growing at 3ppm of Ca from 1tsp GH booster once a week or during water changes, after all we don't need that much Ca.

C187H186O89N9S1 is the Chem formula for Humic Acid, basically when a weak acid dilutes in water only some of it will break apart into ions, strong acids completly break apart into ions sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid are some strong examples. Basically the black sand is the sulfur giving up some electrons till it hits a -2 state and combining with some metal and precipitating out. With out calculating the total ionic formula which based on the chemical list in your post would be extensive, off the top of my head style guess I would say copper sulfide would be your black sand.

From a chemistry stand point I see why Humic acid was chosen it has a huge carbon to oxygen ratio so the carbon availability would be greater. If the goal was having a source of sulfur though its pretty low.

happi, the black sand on the bottom is the result of a redox reaction. Basically you oxidized a metal in the acidic solution to the point it couldn't remain aqueous and it precipitated out. Sulfides can result in black sand precipitates.

are you talking about the humic acid? because this is the only one that leave behind some black sand in the solution, which i thought was normal.

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